MAMATOKUS.COM

Transition Tokus 2012

2012-01-03T12:02:00.000Z

This Christmasbrought me closer to doom.

OK, so the Mayan spokesman is saying forus not to worry, but December 20^th, 2012 is looking like a bigdeadline for civilisation. With the emphasis on dead. That’s what mypessimistic side is telling me.

Luckily, as a Libran, I balance out with a big dose ofoptimism. And it’s this that is going to get me through the dark days untilnext December. That and my growing collection of survivalist literature:Collins Gem Trees and Food for Free;Fresh Foodfrom Small Spaces, Ray MearsSurvival Handbook, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Lost Lore, GoodHousekeeping Household Handbook 1983, Caitlin Moran’s How To Be AWoman...

I'll have a Muddy Puddle please

I’m stockpiling knowledge right now. Soon it will be bottledwater and iodine, filter straws for purifiying brackish water, mung beans foreasy protein sprouted in the darkness when the lights go out on Planet Earth, abicycle generator for off-gridpersonal power, a bicycleblender for apoca-lattes, a head-full of flour and water recipes, seeds tostart my post-apocalyptic smallholding, songs to share with the stragglers whosurvive with me to begin our New Dawn. And a crossbow. For rabbits. And thosewho don’t like my songs.

So far, I’ve bought my After-Disaster Alpha Male (A.D.A.M) atoy catapult to try out on seagulls, but we’ll be trading up to real weapons asThe Date With Destiny approaches.

I’m dusting off my Girl Guide 1983 (it was a good year forskills) firestarting and log-lashing badgework notes so that I can build anIkea-style kitchen from leafmatter and cowpats, in the flickering light of mywoodland hearth.

I plan to use the time until December to seriously augmentmy skills and wisdom enough to ensure that me and A.D.A.M make it through tothis Game’s next level. I’m calling this process Transition Tokus and I’ll bereporting my progress throughout right here in digital ink.

Of course, when They pull the plug on the web servers, I’llbe scratching my journal into the walls of my cave, where it will remain,undisturbed for aeons until future archaeologists unearth my scrabblings anduse it as evidence to prove how primitive Man was in 2012...

Now a Minge-Fro sounds interesting...

2011-12-28T20:23:00.001Z

Required reading for 2012 for the laydeez: Caitlin Moran’sHow To Be A Woman (actually, all the switched on birds would’ve read heralready, but ideas take time to filter through the afro sometimes).

I’ve just burnt this book in just over a day. In my pyjamas.But a good day’s work, nonetheless.

It’s part memoir, part pro-feminist rant, but with a hugeheap o’laughs too.

How about this for shooting down the porn industry’s dominationover our lady-garden-look?

“It’s like – ladies! This shit doesn’t apply to us! We’renot getting paid for this! We don’t need to bother! Grow your little minge-froback! Be hair now!"

The big ideas shooting through the book is that we should beon the constant look-out for sneaky, subtle sexism in the 21^stcentury, and that if we’re in any doubt as to what we women should be doing inthese mixed-messaged moments, we should ask ourselves the test question: “Arethe fellas doing it as well?” (compare obsessing about body image, havingfacial tucks, shaving their genitals to look like children).

Check out Caitin Moran further here. Or buy her book fromMama’s Shop of Horrors here.

In other book news...

I’ve been soaking up an alternative view of the 1960s, linkingcounter-culture hippies and LSD opinion-formers with esoteric Nazis andoccultism. Perfect for the grandparents.

NEVER TRUST A HIPPY. Alright?

The Travelling Brain Show

2011-12-01T17:23:00.001Z

I'm venturing into show production with The Travelling Brain Show!

It's edutainment in time for Christmas: the perfect funny-clever cabaret show that gets you away from the interminable Yuletide TV adverts and into a good, old-fashioned atmosphere of humanity...

The Travelling Brain Show is a mix of intriguing facts about how the human brain works, presented in the style of a smart Vaudeville-lecture,

John Hudson and Sonja Kling perform strange case studies using comedy, acting, sumptuous singing, occasional dancing, yodelling - plus a projected visual feast.

Their mad collection of astonishing brain dysfunctions opens a window to a world of weirdness.

There is the neglect syndrome, foreign accent syndrome, pavement fondling and even epileptic poets. There is also the Penfield Homunculus, oxytocin, a new cure for phantom limb pain, some live brain experiments on stage and an autopsy of a cauliflower!

Find out how your brain works with The Travelling Brain Show.

Entertaining, sexy, funny. Enlightenment with style and taste.

The perfect Christmas do and an antidote to too many Slade soundtracks...

Tickets cost £7 each.
Buy tickets online here: www.wegottickets.com/mamatokus or via 07786 808807
Or you can buy tickets directly over the counter at The Barrel House, Totnes.

2011-11-19T13:13:00.001Z

We all need a bit of Kurt Vonnegut in our lives (see quote above). I'm reading A Man Without A Country - his memoir of life in George W Bush's America (and his final work, actually). Here's Kurt talking about the effects of music - and blues - on our shaky human psyche:

"The priceless gift that African-Americans gave the whole world when they were still in slavery was a gift so great that it is now almost the only reason many foreigners still like us at least a little bit. That specific remedy for the worldwide epidemic of depression is a gift called the Blues...the wonderful writer Albert Murray, who is a jazz historian and a friend of mine among other things, told me that during the era of slavery in this country - an atrocity from which we can never fully recover - the suicide rate per capita among slave owners was much higher than the suicide rate among slaves.

"Murray says he thinks this was because slaves had a way of dealing with depression, which their white owners did not: they could shoo away Old Man Suicide by playing and singing the Blues. He says something else which also sounds right to me. He says the Blues can't drive depression clear out of a house, but can drive it into the corners of any room where it's being played. So please remember that."

Gift economies, Miss Ovulator and harmonious geezers

2011-10-26T18:08:00.000+01:00

Am back from performing at the Burning Man party Decom,where I shared billing with Miss Ovulator (who gave up one of her eggs live on stage) – swiftly followed up by my own song(Too Busy To) Reproduce. Now THERE’S a programming gift...

Did I say gift? Of course, the Burning Man Festival is agift economy and as such is one of the alternative payment systems espoused inmy current reading: The Future ofMoney

Not a maths gal meself, but even this low-grade adder-uppercan see that the current system’s struggling under the weight of cruelty,unfairness and cold-hearted capitalism.

Which is why it’s time to be uplifted! If you’re local to St Mary’s Church, Totnes – enjoy this harmonious lot along with Mama: Sakhioba, a Georgian men’s choir.

I’ll be at the front of the church. Praying for redemption.

Shrimp Stew | WWOZ New Orleans 90.7 FM

2011-10-20T10:17:00.001+01:00

You feeling nippy yet? I've just come across this warming shrimp stew, courtesy of my pals at the BEST RADIO STATION EVER broadcasting "New Orleans to the Universe".

Don't be put off by the American cup measurements (that you can convert here). Mind you. What's crab boil when it's at home..?

2011-10-13T23:56:00.000+01:00

I have seen the future. And it’shappened already.

I’ve just watched Miles Electric– A different kind of blue, which is a cracking film about Miles Davis,centring on the other-wordly sounds he and his fellow musicians made from about5pm to 5.38pm in front of half a million people at the Isle of Wight Festival on29^th August 1970.

Santana summed it up by sayingthat it was a “triumph” for Miles to “convert some of the people tomulti-dimensional consciousness”. Not just any old gig then for this afronaut.

The film also mentioned Miles’missus Betty (one of Mama’s fave funkettes, on account of her filthy eponymous album), and how she changed her hubby’s look – and maybe his musical direction.Ah, the power behind the throne.

Talking of relations, I borroweda PA off Noel Harrison, son of Rex, in order to do my gig in the low-ceilingedCott Inn on Sunday. I woulda used my brand new Bose totem pole thingy but it’sjust too tall.

Note to future self: avoid gigs in short venues. Especially if you want to be multi-dimensional.

Mama's first ever reviews!

2011-08-10T18:27:00.000+01:00

The album has gone out to a few magazines local, national and international and a couple of reviews have come in.

The latest edition of the local listings mag 24-7 has said that On The Ragtime is “a triumph of modern-day feminism set against a backdrop of olden-day sounds” and is “just what the soul-doctor ordered”. Amen! You can see the magazine, all interactive-like, by clicking here.

Meanwhile, in Belgium, the Back to the Roots magazine has reviewed Mama favourably. In Dutch.

BELGIUM YESTERDAY

My reliable translators say that the review urges the readers to: “hurry on down to the record shop and buy this marvellous album. A pleasant time is guaranteed for all. Great stuff! ‘On The Ragtime’ should have its place in every blues and roots fan’s collection.”

Being reviewed feels really good (so far). Of course, when I get slated, I’ll throw a hissy fit and go hide under my quivering afro for weeks on end. And I won’t tell you lot, either...

Mama Tokus is on Amazon and Spotify

2011-07-19T17:39:00.000+01:00

My debut album On The Ragtime is now available to download from Amazon.

Just click the button over there on the right and you'll be put through to Mama's Amazon page, where you can download MP3s of On The Ragtime.

And you can stream it if you use Spotify too. Just click this link to open up Spotify on your computer (as long as you have it, of course) and listen away. Or click on the lovely logo...

The album features cheeky rhythm’n’blues, new-gospel, saucy swing, fruity funk and rude blues from the ladies’ perspective from On The Ragtime.

On The Ragtime is also available for you to buy electronically, with just a click of your finger, if you go to my SHOP page (look up. Always look up).

Mama Tokus album on iTunes

2011-06-17T21:02:00.000+01:00

My debut album On The Ragtime is now available on iTunes!

If you're an iTunes user, just click the button over there on the right and you'll be put through to Mama's iTunes Store page, where you can shop to your own delight.

The album features cheeky rhythm’n’blues, new-gospel, saucy swing, fruity funk and rude blues from the ladies’ perspective from On The Ragtime.

On The Ragtime is also available for you to buy electronically, with just a click of your finger at the following places:

Click below to order a signed copy from Mama:

Click here to buy from Roots CD - ace roots, blues, R'n'B and rockabilly site

Click here to buy on eBay

Click below to buy from ReverbNation: downloads and ringtones (prices in $)

Send me your comments on the album here - but only if they're good, of course...

Or find my Amazon store here to browse what I read, watch and recommend...

Mama Tokus is available for sale!

2011-05-29T16:06:00.006+01:00

My debut album On The Ragtime features cheeky rhythm’n’blues, new-gospel, saucy swing, fruity funk and rude blues from the ladies’ perspective from On The Ragtime.

Find out more about this album by clicking here and downloading the press release

On The Ragtime is available for you to buy electronically, with just a click of your finger at the following places:

Click below to order a signed copy from Mama:

Click here to buy from Roots CD - ace roots, blues, R'n'B and rockabilly site

Click below to buy from ReverbNation: downloads and ringtones (prices in $)

Send me your comments on the album here - but only if they're good, of course...

Or find my Amazon store here to browse what I read, watch and recommend...

One good thing about music...

2011-05-16T11:42:00.000+01:00

Bob Marley said there was one good thing about music: when it hits you feel no pain.

But that’s not necessarily true, according to some hurting folk in my new home town of Totnes

Mama took to the streets this weekend with her man to busk - and got moved on by:

A high-vis, low-tolerance market official demanding £18 rent
An uncharitable charity shop worker who rudely told us to get out of the way of her window

It wasn’t as if we were playing Coldplay covers, or something.

I was struck by the harsh reaction to gentle live music – we were unamplified, we were singing close harmonies and we were adding ambience to proceedings (that’s not just our opinion, but that of passers-by and appreciators).

However, you’d have thought that we were vandalising the place by the reactive reaction. In both cases, the small-minds asked us if we had a permit. It’s the perpetual cry of the Little Britons safely belted into the Big Society

Sure we need methods of getting along as humans living closely together. Yeah, laws do come in handy. But there’s a lack of good humour and a pleasant looseness in dealing with each other. And that can strangle character and creativity.

Maybe it’s time for a Small Society. Last week my pal Andy Williamson sent me a Facebook page to like on Degrowth (decroissance as graffiti-ed here).

I haven’t explored it all yet but I’m interested in concepts like this. It’s akin to the Slow Movement and it calls for a cutting down in consumerism; a voluntary simplicity and contraction in our activities. But fear not – it’s also talking about an expansion of community, local connections and warmth. Naturally, those Philosophiques, the French came up with it.

As it happens, I’ve been hanging out with a French bird recently: blues chanteuse Sophie Kay. She and I were buddies at the recent Barbican International Jazz and Blues Festival.

Not many people combined with crappy weather and loads of alcopop drinkers left me thinking that I should steer away from trying to entertain the people of Plymouth with the likes of Porkchop, Joe Stilgoe, Michael Roach and the wicked Sophie.

However, a bright light in the dim Festival firmament was the CD launch of Becca Langsford’s debut Big Surprise (on sale here). The Festival marquee was packed, the sound was good (and loud) and the atmosphere was rockin’. Vince Lee stalked the stage whilst Becca growled daintily. I know you shouldn’t be able to growl daintily, but Becca can.

I’m doubly happy about all that because I’ve been working with Becca and Vince on my forthcoming album, due out real soon. And listen out for live collaborations between us three in the near future.

2011-04-05T15:56:00.000+01:00

Mama Tokus has featured in the international press!

After attending her mate’s Indian food event, she got snapped by the paparazzi – literally.

Famous Italian national newspaper Il Repubblica sent a reporting team to document Mongo Denoon and the OK Catering Success, which was running an Indian food and movie event in the Whirled Cinema in Brixton.

The idea was that you paid a ticket, scoffed all-you-could-scoff pucka Indian street food, and caught an amazing film on Kolkata street cuisine at the same time.

The reporters did a feature on this great event, and it got published in their glossy magazine – available online here (see page 154 and onward).

Talking of good ideas, I was inspired by a quote from artist John Petts, who is mentioned in an uplifting tale of the small man doing something big, right here.

Petts said: “An idea doesn’t exist unless you do something about it. Thought has no real living meaning unless it’s followed by action of some kind.”

So here’s some action of a Mama kind: I’ve been working hard on my debut album, with collaborator Vince Lee at the heart of the goings-on (it’s not like he ain’t busy himself. He’s producing Becca Langsford’s debut album Big Surprise simultaneously).

Fingers crossed it’s out in time for the looming Barbican Jazz and Blues Festival, where Mama has a gig on Friday April 29. Buy tickets for that show – and the other Festival shows – online here.

And the title for this cheeky example of 21^st century women’s blues and R&B?

On the Ragtime...

Message from the Motherland

2011-03-09T00:25:00.000Z

It was time to give something back last week.

So Mama picked up the mic for a good cause: Gambian Projects.

Teacher Debbie Williams gave up her comfy life, car and home to go live in a mud hut in The Gambia and work with communities there.

When she comes back to Britain, she fundraises like crazy to make money for the school she’s built there.

She organised a night in The B-Bar (Mama’s spiritual home) with the usual stuff like an auction and a raffle. And an Elvis impersonator. Then she added a dash of music in the form of Benny ‘Guitar’ Carr (pictured with Mama and Debbie) and the Hot Rats and classical guitarist Will McNicol.

Mama was MCing and was expected to make sense of this craziness, hosting the night for Debbie. Apparently I did alright, because Debbie gave me this testimonial:

"Mama Tokus was MC for Gambian Projects at our first fundraiser held at the B Bar on Plymouth's historic Barbican. Mama was in touch by email several weeks before the event to familiarise herself with our activities and to ensure that she had the correct background information about our aims and objectives. A week before the event she phoned and went through the plan for the evening which turned out brilliantly due to her natural and instinctive ability to guide the event. She is an intelligent, highly articulate lady with a great deal of charisma and this came across from the very first communication.

She has a naturally exuberant personality and sense of showmanship which I have seen when watching her perform on stage. However, on this particular evening, due to the serious nature of the fundraising aims, she allowed everyone else to shine and knew intuitively when to jump in and when to let others talk. I was very nervous about addressing the audience and she stood strong beside me giving me the confidence I needed at that particular time.

I would recommend Mama to anyone who is looking for a key person to hold an event together. She has her own strong talents and is not afraid to let others show theirs. She was polite, kind and considerate and 100% professional. All our committee were really impressed with her and would not hesitate to invite her to act for us again."

Blimey.

The night did alright too – we raised £1,442 for the Gambian Projects. Read about it here in the Herald.

The debut album gets nearer

2011-02-23T02:04:00.000Z

Work has begun on Mama’s debut album (working title: On The Ragtime).

I’m working with Vince Lee, who’s already proving a fine producer and herder of cats. I have been mocked roundly for contributing a flipchart and pens to proceedings, but needs must when everyone forgets where the middle 8 is supposed to be (me included).

Am performing piano-less this weekend, with Thomas Ford as accompanist (below). In fact, he’s much more than that. He’s taking the first set, while we carve up the second set between us.

He’s a wicked slide man with an unexpectedly blues growl for a voice.

A new song is due to be played – 500 Nights, written on the road in the US. It’s about casual and flippant lovin’. Guilty as charged...

Last month saw me helping to launch ArtsMatrix with a gig in the Plymouth College of Art cafe. Unlikely setting for tunes like Anarchy in the UK but Mama’s corporate offer is on the up.

This week I host an event for Gambian Projects, plus I also turn up in the In The Flesh festival for new work, organised by the Barbican Theatre.

Mama has been reading about the supposed existence of orgone energy or universal life force, as well as not finishing a poem about rhyming slang.

Mama Tokus at the Burning Man Festival 2010

2010-12-07T22:32:00.000Z

Here's Mama performing at Cabaret Quixote within the Burning Man festival in Nevada in September this year.

Amazingly, the cabaret tent is put on by a bunch of Burners from....the UK! They build a castle (natch), put in a stage, full lighting and sound rig and even have a team of technicians - very pro.

The acts are many, varied and usually excellent and I was lucky enough to land the last slot on two nights in the dust of Black Rock City. Here's my version of Eminem's Slim Shady, backwards-engineered to be a feminist rant about body image:

In other news, Mama's been very busy dragging her sorry black ass around various Devon towns. I do a street show with a distended bustle on wheels that holds a PA system. Therefore, I call it my Public Dress System. Here's what it looks like:

I've been performing in Ashburton, Dartmouth and Kingsbridge, and people seem to like it, but I think I need a lot more elegance. Hmm - stay tuned for mobile music-dress developments.

Mama's been starring in the subversive seasonal show Yule Be Sorry! as part of the Tuk Tuk Cabaret Team. We've been playing every Sunday at the B-Bar and we'll be doing so until and including December 19.
You can get tickets here for Sunday 12 December and here for Sunday 19 December.

Plus here's some pictures taken by a fan at the Bizarre Bazaar Ball in Ashburton last month. David Craddock shot these as I performed at this very salubrious event put on by the crazy traders of the town.

Finally, have been laying down the first few guide tracks for my forthcoming album (title to be decided upon) and am working with Vince Lee and Tim Langsford. Listen out!

Rev Billy likes me!

2010-11-14T22:37:00.000Z

It’s a busy time for Mama Tokus at the moment.

I’ve got to host performance poetry session Forked at the B-Bar this week – and it’s a bit nail-biting because I’ll be premiering an ‘introduction’ poem I’ve written about meself on my performance poetry course (I thought I ought to learn more about this poetry lark, seeing as it helps to put food in Mama’s fridge). Buy your tickets to the show right here.

You’ll see the intro poem here on this blog in the near future. I just want our rhyme-bosses to give it the once-over before I make it public.

I performed it to a TV producer this weekend, who’s quite keen on putting Mama in front of the cameras to talk music. Watch this space, or rather, watch the TV-shaped space in the distant future.

I’ll also be performing said poem (it better be good) at the forthcoming Bizarre Bazaar Winter Ball – 200 tickets sold so far – taking place at the plush Lavender House Hotel on November 20.

After that, I’m away up the A38 for a showcase gig at The Big Chill Bar, as part of the Music South West conference Fringe. So I gotta get me backing tracks sorted out fast.

Meanwhile, I’m plotting a food+music business venture that I hope will make Mama get fat on the profits.

Finally, my already healthy confidence was boosted further when I discovered that a hero of mine LIKES my page on Facebook! Yes, anti-consumerism campaigner and cod-clergyman Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping says he likes Mama Tokus!

I bumped into him at the Burning Man Festival and it was a big moment for me. And, of course, for him.

I’m waiting by the phone to see if he’ll invite to join his church choir...

Busy? Bling it on

2010-10-27T23:06:00.000+01:00

Mama’s getting busy with the gigs, alright.

I’ve got a show this Friday October 29 at the B-Bar where the new-look Sons of Bitches make an appearance.

That means two girl backing singers, and (in the words of Tina Turner) we sound sweet as honey.

The idea is that Mama Tokus hosts a night of soul and gospel sounds on the final Friday of each month, showcasing my original stuff as well as good interpretations, and giving me regular dates to work towards. That means I’ve got gigs in the same cute venue on Friday November 26 and New Year’s Eve too (where I’ll be trying to hang on the coat-tails of bluesman Vince Lee and singer Becca Langsford).

Both me and Vince (pictured left) have landed gigs for the Music South West 2010 Live Fringe in November. We’ll be entertaining music industry bods who will be attending conferences in the day, and hearing “the best new music from the South West” by night. Better be on good form.

I hope it will lead me nearer to my goal of performing at SXSW 2011 too, so cross everything for me.

Away from music, I’ve been rehearsing an alternative Christmas show with my TukTuk Cabaret mates. It’s called Yule Be Sorry and it’s on at the B-bar on the following Sundays: 28 Nov, 5, 12 and 19 December. Buy your tickets here.

I’ve also been learning how to be a performance poet, courtesy of a course put on by Apples & Snakes. And I’ll be hosting the next Forked too, taking place at (you’ve guessed it) the B-Bar on Thursday 18 November. Get your tickets here.

Finally, I received a late but great birthday present from my bestest, oldest pal photographer Vicki Couchman (who collaborated with designer Ben Perry). Together they came up with some ego-jewellery for Yours Truly in the shape of my logo.

I’m a bling Mama ting now!

2010-10-12T21:52:00.001+01:00

I've found my people - and that's you guys. Five weeks in my Father(s)land of the USA makes for a can-do attitude so sit tight for media-rich Mama Tokus updates.

First up, a holiday report. You wanna go to my New Best Destination? You stay at the Little Eazy, up the road from New Orleans' hip Frenchman Street scene. Mama celebrated a big birthday there (I turned 39 again) and started the day with a cigar in the cottage's hot-tub. Email Margaret - but tell her I sent you.

I also stayed at the India Backpacker’s Hostel – perfect for an entertainer’s busman’s holiday, with its stage and PA, groovy people round the pool and morning fry-ups.

I met more of my people in NO, including Marc Stone who, when not broadcasting on WWOZ.org (my bestest ever radio station ever), plays great antique blues and acid zydeco. Not at the same time. He invited Mama to step up and sing at his gig on Bourbon Street. Ay, how my NO showbiz virginity was tenderly taken...

Whilst in the Dirty South I took in a bit of boho Texas (and there is only a bit), staying at the Austin Motel, and visiting the nearby Hamilton Pools (left), courtesy of a tip-off from inspirational new pal Rupert Isaacson.

He’s busy training horses there, writing and travelling, launching a movie about his journey to Mongolian shamanism with his autistic son and pushing a Hollywood script an’ all.

Prior to the Dirty South, Mama showed up at the Burning Man festival, where she stormed the ramparts of Quixote Cabaret’s castle (run by Englishmen, natch), plus rocked the Burn’s jazz club.

Of course, the whole dang trip began in California, where Mama got her toes wet surfing and fishing. See a report of my first ever fly-fishing trip on that unlikely but oh-so-readable music industry/angling/culture blog Caught By The River.

And now back to UK earth with a bump: this weekend’s showbiz job in hand involves Mama judging Saltash Has Got Talent. I’ll try to be kind...

Mama's off to the Burning Man

2010-08-15T13:00:00.000+01:00

I realise I've been less prolific on this blog than a mouthy bird like me should be, but I've been concentrating my fire on performing at festivals and preparing for one too: in less than a fortnight, I'm off to the Burning Man in Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

I'll be freely expressing with me artist pal Amanda Bluglass - performing with my Public Dress System - then it's off to Lake Tahoe for some R'n'R.

After that, we head south (via San Francisco) to the birthplace of jazz'n'blues: New Orleans.

We might hit Austin, Texas on this grand road trip, then it's back to the Big Easy (staying here in the Little Eazy, actually) for a big birthday date. With a hot tub and cigar.

Amen! Back in October.

Silver Fox Fixation

2010-05-20T16:28:00.002+01:00

I gotta Silver Fox Fixation and I can’t get him outta my mind

I like plenty of flirtation with the more mature kind

Don’t like my lovers wrinkle-free

It’s better when they’ve lost elasticity

I gotta Silver Fox Fixation and I can’t get him outta my mind

I like old man lovin’ coz I love those shaky hands

And they’re wise enough to honour my demands

I like em when they’ve learnt a lot

When they’ve been around the block

I like old man lovin’ coz I love those shaky hands

I don’t need a brand new hot-hatch car

When I can drive a classic jaguar

He don’t speed on the motorway

He chunters on and on all day

I don’t need a brand new hot-hatch car

Don’t tease me no more, sugar-daddy

Tease me no more

I know what those little blue pills is for

We can rock all night till your poor old joints get sore

I like a man who’s sorted out his life, and I

Got what it takes to be his second wife

He knows what he wants to do

His mid-life crises are all through

I like a man who’s sorted out his life

Experience really counts an awful lot

Those hairless young boys can’t even spell G-spot

An older man has got panache

And probably a bit more cash

But experience really counts an awful lot

Don’t tease me no more, sugar-daddy

Tease me no more

I know what those little blue pills is for

We’re gonna rock all night till your joints get sore

An agin’ heart really needs those beta-blocks

But age-gap blues are what I haven’t got

An older man’s got inner peace

Plus he’s nearer to deceased

When Mama can hunt another Silver Fox...

2010-03-28T16:24:00.000+01:00

Been bird-spotting with my pal Andy in one of Plymouth's nature reserves called Ham Woods, and we saw loads of nature action.

View Larger Map

Notice that we're not the only ones getting hip to the pippet (and the warbler, the wood pigeon, the jay or the sparrowhawk).

Check this out, from fashionable Gorillaz documentary maker to twitching on the Isles of Scilly, here's a long but tasty worm to peck at. It's at Caught By The River, a website about rock, art, pop-culture, angling, waterways and grassy banks.

It's been set up by Heavenly Records, which was set up by Jeff Barrett, brother of Stephen Barrett, owner of Bistro One on Ebrington Street...and Plymouth gets mentioned on this site, with talk of the Museum and Art Gallery staging a Kurt Jackson exhibition

2010-03-27T21:39:00.000Z

Thursday 25 March 2010

ADHD

(or Architect-Designed-House Desire)

I want the clean lines for my own face

Space-saving crazy-paving

Stock library children waving to me through my

Floor-to-ceiling windows.

I want a magazine shoot for a front room

Stylishly presented, recycled air-vente

Proto-gallery photo-gallery dust-free-environment

I want a Zen garden path: walkway to hip contemplation

Rumination on the creation of a home that’s an ongoing inspiration.

I want an Ikea landscape, a calm environment with

No clutter, no life-trappings, no…furniture.

Everything put away in neat matching boxes and

Storage systems. Storage solutions.

Those protectors against confusions

Neatly labelled, clearly marked, all my things neatly parked

In my hoped-for sanctuary of clarity

No disparity nor vulgarity

Living in perfect harmony!

I have Grand Designs on this home and lifestyle

I see promulgated in the glossies.

Beamed to me on flat-screen-TV. OCD in high-definition.

Hyper-reality shows up precisely when its required.

Pretend coal-fired but really low-carbon

Kevin McCloud’s got a hard-on. Or a semi.

Brushed aluminium, cold steel kitchen

The sheen of the new

Line-caught cod in the sink still twitching

Ready for the dinner do

Bing-Bong! There’s the bell!

Or rather, the highly sophisticated, voice activated, heat-sensing, iris-recognising, remotely-controlled-from-my-iPhone entry system solution.

Just coming!

I sweep down my marble stairs in a freshly sterilised housecoat ready to greet friends. In face-masks, guarding against the microbes they may be carrying.

They don’t have to kick off their shoes.

They’ve been left at the garden gate.

In a British designer-made rack especially for the purpose.

Only £48 grand on eBay.

Once inside, guests can relax and recline

In the laboratory conditions of the sitting area.

Each sofa with its own handy breathing tube

And disposable, eco-antimacassars

Woven of wool from rare-breed sheep

Locally-cloned on the farm near here.

Really low on antimacassar miles.

Coffee-table magazines are positioned just-so

Affording an air of intellect to an already stimulating atmosphere

Of fear.

Are you sitting comfortably?

No? Have a sharpened scatter-cushion.

Matched to the house’s colour palette

Selected from my collection of unbleached cotton shoppers.

Sorta magnolia really.

Or try the original Eames chair over by there

Don’t scare. It was only £48 grand on eBay.

Retrofurb your des-res

Knock down a wall

Put in a mezz.

Dormer windows let more light in

Do what it says on the tin. Or die.

Farrow & Ball colours in the insides of my eyelids. Get rid!

Dulux dogs devouring Kevin on that manicured lawn,

laying down turds just the right shade of fawn.

Crushed by velvet, carpeted over, brushed under

Rip off the tiles, rent wallpaper asunder

It’s my Architect Designed House Desire

Or ADHD for short

My Magazine Designed Modern Ambience

Or MDMA

Or is it OCD? In my pristine gallery

Where I live with just me, me, me.

Marchesa Luisa Casati

2010-01-31T15:52:00.000Z

Dec 27, 2009

Marchesa Luisa Casati

Adored an extravagant party

Fresh chicken blood

Down her dresses would flood

So inspiring the Illuminati

She was a doyenne

A fashion icon

And she played a leading part

As an occultist

A muse for artists

A living work of art

Her skin was moonlight

Her hair a fire-light

And her looks would silence rooms

Vermilion lips, bush-baby eyes

Ability to mesmerise

With the wildest of costumes

The Marchesa

Luisa Casati

Was the brightest of the glitterati

She was feted and venerated

By the Belle Epoque cognoscenti

She had cheetahs

On turquoise leashes

Oiled-up black boys in gold-leaf

While she paraded in coats of sable

With nothing underneath

She’d go walking

Set tongues a-wagging

But they all could go to hell

She had the riches and the glamour

To drown out the jealous clamour

(and three palaces as well)

Creatives used her

But it amused her

To be an artist’s catalyst

Man Ray enshrined her

And defined her

Photo tres surrealiste!

Today’s designers

Need no reminders

Of Casati’s special looks

An intoxicating mixture

Plus her pictures are a fixture

In museums and art books

A social whirl of pretty girls

And prettier men of gaiety

Around her limbs the snakes would curl

Lending her notoriety

Created her own occultist world

And haunted the minds of artists past

Luisa Casati: High Priestess of Party

Was destined not to last

Marchesa’s exotic life unfurled

The money was spent, the game was up

Her artifacts were sold

Her palaces all were boarded up

It was the ending of her world

The artists had put their brushes down

The party was ended: Casati upended

Her ship was going down

Yes, all the money was gone

(She never really sorted that out. She should’ve sought the advice of a good financial advisor).

Then she might have retired in security

In the knowledge she was safe in perpetuity

But instead she spunked millions on a dazzling life as a

Shooting star in a galaxy

Leaving her mark on the firmament

A high-octane comet

A rocket

A celestial body

But bright stars always burn out, don’t they?

Bright stars always burn out, don’t they?

Bright stars always burn out.

Don’t they?

Those lips vermilion

Ate through the millions

(so the gossip writers told)

It was the changing

Of The Season

(a fallen leaf turned black from gold)

Picture the image:

In bins she’d rummage

For broken feathers for her hair

Forlorn hostess

Who had the mostess

But it vanished in thin air

They interred her

With the glamour

That was suited to her days

As a living

Piece of artwork

A muse, with hair ablaze

She wore eyelashes

In her coffin

And her favourite Pekinese

Was buried with her in the coffin,

Both so elegantly rotting

In Old Brompton Cemetery!

Oh – a patron of all the things arty

Now a hostess at Heavenly parties

For lest we forget

It’s not over yet for

Marchesa Luisa Casati

Da-dum!

Culture reigns supreme in Plymouth!

2010-01-21T08:44:00.000Z

(Bet you never thought you'd hear that).

Anyway, it does for the inquisitive ones, happy to hunt out their stimulation, turning over stones and, er, leafing through online pages.

In fact, I've decided to put my super-motivated oar in, start up a Facebook group celebrating Plymouth Culture in order to pass on a few tasty tips and pointers. Watch me fan those flames of fun...

Meanwhile, Mama Tokus business has been brisk this month:

There's been the new act to develop (deadline May 3, the Bank Holiday Monday of the Barbican International Jazz and Blues Festival, where the act has to get on the road).

Without giving too much away, the act involves a big dress, a bicycle trailer and a PA. Mama's going mobile! I'm working with me diminutive pal Stef, who's a dab hand at costumery. He pointed me towards quick-change artiste Arturo Brachetti (right). And I've not looked back since.

Mama (and me) have been enjoying a burst of creativity thanks to being inspired by musicians past and present.

I watched Ian Dury (RIP) depicted by Andy Serkis in new Brit-flick Sex and Drugs and Rock'n'Roll. And loved it. Go see! That's him in the picture. He does a good job...

In home entertainment, I borrowed me pal's DVD of guitarist Derek Trucks. Rollicking and richly textured with a soulful, lyrical, funky, melodic, Southern-style boogie going on. Just how Mama likes it. Two hours with Derek flew by.

My miserablist pal Arash Torabi has lent me his copy of Jon Savage's ace compilation of 'intense Tamla': Shadows of Love. It's the sound of the Motown lot getting moody. And it wrenches your heart. In a good way.

Finally I've completed a tango-style poem on the Belle Epoque queen of partying (right), the Marchesa Luisa Casati, to be unveiled at this week's edition of Forked! - the performance poetry night at the B-bar on Thursday 21 Jan.

It's all go!

Soul sisterhood meets for a quick chat

2009-12-17T09:54:00.000Z

Forget X-Factor: your blogging hostess met with real music royalty this week, when she bumped into both Lulu and Chaka Khan outside a hotel in Plymouth.

I was tipped off by a fellow funkateer and told to be hanging outside this particular Copthorne Hotel at a certain time for the ladies, who are touring together with Anastacia in their chick-soul show Here Come the Girls.

Sure enough, the tour manager let us approach Chaka (but no photos without show make-up we were told).

The First Lady of Disco lent forward and allowed your correspondent to plant a kiss on her line-free face, and hugged her to her ample bosom too.

Lulu was just as generous with her personal space too and both gave autographs that Mama Tokus will be hanging on her wall with her other celebrity DNA!

Post-experience, I enjoyed Chaka’s version of the Dizzy Gillespie tune A Night In Tunisia.

In other news, Mama Tokus gets back on the gig wagon after attempting to steal the show at her best pal’s 40th birthday party. If you're on Facebook, see footage of Mama’s (current) theme tune I’m A Woman – chosen to differentiate herself from other drag queen lookalikes…

Watch out for more Mama at an exclusive party in London this week, held by thinker, talker, storyteller and 3D visualiser Don Eales.

Find out a little about what he thinks about right here.

N'Awlins in my blood

2009-12-02T21:56:00.000Z

I have been to the source and back in the last month.

N’Awlins – birthplace of jazz and blues – has me in its thrall.

Unfashionable as it sounds to say this but I like America. And Americans (truth is I am one by birth, so I’m claiming some kinda genetic affinity. As proven by the way I said kinda just then).

Thanks to the Plymouth City Development Company and UK Trade and Industry, I went to New Orleans to fact-find.

FACT #1: N’Awlins rolls like a purdy-mouthed piggy on a barbecue spit.

I was a delegate at the World Culture Economic Forum, an event created by one of Louisiana’s charismatic leaders: Lt Gov Mitch Landrieu (2nd right) – who decided that culture was gonna be at the centre of NOLA’s economy in the 21^st century. Surprise to me that it wasn’t, what with its place assured at the birthplace of those American art-forms jazz and blues, y’all (there I go again). Came back with loads of notes for the Plymouth Culture Board, any road.

FACT #2 (see what I’m doing here with the American number punctuation?):

There is so much music, that people in NO take it for granted.

I saw the famed Dirty Dozen twice (joining them on stage - see left - and getting an autographed copy of their brand new version of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On) and the Rebirth Jazz Band once in the same week. Had we not missed our flight, we would have caught Dr John and Jon Cleary too.

Plus we caught

Andre Williams (pictured above right)- a rockin’ 74-year-old who (according to a particularly memorable chorus) likes his woman: “Agile, mobile…and hostile!”

Amen!

FACT #3: There are lots of big people in NO.

And I was headed that way after feasting on the following:

Soft shelled crabs, deep-fried and served with gravy and fries. You eat their hands. Really you do.
Crawfish, deep-fried and served with dippin’ sauce.
Pigs’ ears. Strips of pigs’ ears, deep-fried and served with dipping sauce.
A muffuletta – a big roll of processed ham and processed cheese, with chopped olives and pickles.
Cans and cans of non-Diet Coca Cola. What’s a teetotaller gonna do? I know it’s the Devil’s wee-wee, but it’s lovely.
Not much salad.

During my time there, I managed to get on the radio – joining in Marc Stone’s afternoon show on community jazz and blues internet station WWOZ.org. Tune in over the interweb – you won’t find many adverts, just fantastic music delivered by loving experts, 24/7. Hear my interview online through Mama Tokus’s Myspace.

Plus we also visited the fantastic Ogden Museum of Southern Art, which curates music, film and food events alongside its exciting span of pieces.

So why did I come back?!

Lady of the LED light

2009-11-25T13:45:00.000Z

18 November, 2009

With laptop as loom, the cyber-spinner crafts a day’s work from binary code.
Page loads.

Threads of media combine and she knits a career out of nought.
List sort.

It’s alt-tab alchemy as a webpage begins to take shape.

First its header. Then a footer. Then its buttons go on.

She digs through her inbox to find her tools. She cuts. She pastes.

There’s little waste from this mac-neat operator.

She saves. Regularly.
Stitching time online.

Worn carpet beneath her workstation.

Daylight-blocking curtains with daylight bulbs.

Screen wipes. Low hum.

Two phones: landline and mobile.

Ionising crystal and executive toy.

Pinboard.

All walls are white. Mac-white.

Her computer doubles as radiator, warming her bones and drying her membranes.

Prior cottage-industrialists suffered needle-pricked fingertips and eye-squint.

Screen-glare equals no blink so a Post-It note reminds her to

(when she can tear her eyes away to read it).

As a digital immigrant in the 90s, she landed with matching computer-cases, dewy-eyed at the big Apple, ready to make her mark in her American dream holiday.

This wasn’t work – this was lifestyle!

She learnt new languages and words. She early-adopted.

She upgraded. Regularly.

Her skills weren’t received from the generation previous. Rather, they sank in from the electric atmosphere exhaled from Silicon Valley.

She basked in the white heat of technology – but it burnt her too.

Partners who were locked out, logged out – stared out by the screen’s unblinking, possessive gaze.

Her pixel-lit pupils fixed on fonts, not faces.

Her fingers flicked over function keys.
She Googled. Regularly.

Like wizened old women the world over, our Lady of the LED Lamp will succumb to the

ravages of the machine-age.

Her mouse grip will slacken as her blunted synapses slow up.

Her already shaking fingers will ossify. Petrify.

Her dry eyes will mist over, her ears no longer hearing email alerts.

Her laptop hunch will be permanent.

System shutdown.

Pensionable age has been put back to 85, so press on she must.

With no sons or daughters to support her she continues to log on and do the screen time.

The only umbilical cord she experienced linked her to the wall-socket.

Her ovaries atrophied over long days and nights at the screen.

Her children-window closed quietly as she played digital midwife. Witnessing others’ business baby-steps, holding only clients’ hands, soothing scuffed code, smoothing away fears.

So she sits once again on her ergonomic office commode, carefully connects her RSS feed-tube and tries not to remember the sun on her straighter back and the sweet air in her nose.

Or the time when she’d forego time at the keys for a walk in the park with a non-virtual friend. She’d even turn off her phone. Sometimes.

She deleted those memories. Regularly.

You Dildo Dontcha Dough? (working title)

2009-11-25T13:40:00.001Z

July 23 2009

“There’s a difference between a vibrator and a dildo, dontcha know?”

So said my worldly wise-woman friend after hearing news pg the only sex-toy I’ve ever used.

She said: “A dildo’s designed to be static, or strapped on. It’s just there, inert.

(I counted a couple of past liaisons in that group).

“Now a vibrator’s different,” she went on. “It moves of its own accord.”

(I remembered a couple of past liaisons who were in that group. Just).

After long frozen months of my winter, a thaw had set in and my glacier was retreating. I felt like getting to know me once again.

So I went to my drawer to re-make my acquaintance and to shake the hand of Mr Bold-Finger (and thumb).

But like a metaphor for my state of non-lust,

my rubber-mate’s compartment was rusted,

Ruining the moment and requiring me to write a Post-It reminder:

www.dildo-finder.com

In between my Googlemails I navigated cut-price sales and clicked through offers on the rails.

All without leaving the room, and thanks to the internet sex-store boom.

Made OK for ladies now with pink, frilly websites, offering pink willy nights.

Oh yes, it’s all above board for below-stairs action, now the girls have got in on the transaction. Satisfaction guaranteed. And with no spillage of seed. What’s not to love?

So, back to the store. What am I looking for?

A big double-ender that’ll take all weekend

To work up the courage to approach.

Or a handbag-sized specimen for secretive sessions. Like in the lift.Going up? Going down…

This one’s called the rabbit. And it’s making me jumpy.

Look at the texture. The coating’s all bumpy. What’s up Doc? All the better to pleasure you. Going up. Going Watership Down more like. Let’s hope it wasn’t tested on animals.

Ah, this looks more like my thing. A pair of bunoit balls on a key-ring. But how do you get in the house when you’re using them?

Makes starting the car more attractive by far.

At last I select one that’s like an erection with remote control action. Guaranteed satisfaction. Click-whirr – there’s the transaction.

Ding dong!

And that’s just the doorbell. Of course the postman only knocks twice, so I dash from the cooker. He’s a bit of a looker but who needs people when you can have robots?

Sex-bots. Hot-bots. Hot sex-bots. Hot bot sex. Ahem.

He’s waiting for me to sign on the line and I smile shyly whilst he handles my parcel.

But when he nearly drops it, there’s a twitch in my arsehole.

Cafeful with that! I shriek a little too shrill. And the box starts to shudder of its own free will.

“So the batteries are included” I say to myself. And the postie.

But he’s soon gone and I’m alone with my new flame.

My latest love, my jiggling gigolo. My lectric love truncheon. My wiggle-stick. My battery-boner.

I’m saying all of this as I dance around with it, feeling like Princess Leia with a light-sabre (did I tell you it glows as it goes and goes?) “May the force be in me” I cry as I set the engines to warp drive.

But I haven’t even put it in yet. I’m not in the right mind-set. Yet.

Let’s get comfy, turn me phone off. Turn meself on – now! But how?

I need to get me in the mood.

Lights dimmed, sensual food, music and moonlight and love and romance.

I kick-start a trance, maybe start to dance with my fantasy partner who I keep going back to.

He looks on lasciviously and I look back deliciously and then I lie back simultaneously imagining him fiddling with my buttons…as I fiddle with my buttons.

The practicalities of the actuality invade my confectionary and I’m back to reality with a whimper.

I shoulda read the instructions before attempting seduction.

Ain’t getting laid by a real guy a lot simpler?

But these are techno-times. These strange days when a robot is an easy lay.

I try not to think of the mechanics as I re-boot my handheld-hard-on; my wind-up willy; my dick-switch; my come-bone.

And I drift back into bliss, just me and my robo-cop-off spending time all alone.

Noo Voodoo

2009-11-25T13:36:00.000Z

noovoodoo

March 16 2009

Lemme ask you something.

Do you read your horoscope every day?

To see what the stars have to say

About your chosen way

(or your latest lay)?

Or maybe you’re

Tired of the same old world with only the three dimensions?

You should be looking for Narnia around every corner

Watching out for the little faun. Or the

Little Folk who’ll whisk you to Brigadoon

Via the wardrobe worm-hole in the next room.

Does an angel sit on your shoulder

Helping your good heart get bolder?

Or do you dance with the devil because

He’s the one with the eyes that smoulder?

At least you’re getting your 666 a day.

Are you hopping through life trying not to step on the cracks in the firmament?

By now you must know that none of this is permanent.

But an elaborate, illusory ornament on the

Mantelpiece of your deity of choice.

But hark! What’s that noise?

Here’s where I hush my voice.

It’s behind you girls and boys.

This is a noo voodoo

A noo hoodoo

Call up a noo ju-ju

This is a noo voodoo

A new voodoo

This noo hoodoo

Here is new ju-ju

Can you feel it too?

Today’s ‘happier’, ‘hypier’ lifestyles lead directly to…

…plummeting satisfaction levels.

Yer chakra’s off-kilter when you’ve lost the

Will ta live life through harmony

Not ‘how many’.

I blame the baby-boomer consumers

Who bought into the dream of two cars, two houses, two kids.

Too busy accumulating to speculate

That there might be a richer seam beyond the gleam of their

His’n’hers estate car bonnets.

Time-poor relations who let the TV set babysit.

That’s watching without mother.

This magnolia-painted lifestyle leads invariably to shades of grey.

Alleviated only when the red mist comes down.

Bang bang! The High Street is cut down

By a kid who wants to feel an authentic, non-digital,

shoot-em-up high.

A rush of blood from the head.

Game over.

But what’s that you say?

Lock ‘em all away?

There’s gotta be another way.

This is a noo voodoo

A noo hoodoo

Call up a noo ju-ju

This is a noo voodoo

A new voodoo

This noo hoodoo

Here is new ju-ju

Can you feel it too?

Lemme nail my colours to the mast.

I’m not advocating a return to times past

When we’ve got such a great future together.

If we’re to keep evolving before the Earth stops revolving

We need to come up with something. Fast.

As we stand upon the doorstep of perception,

The one who knocks is an exception,

And the rest hesitate in our trance-like state.

Yet we can grow our rosy futures by visualising the best

And we can be blessed

If we only let ourselves…be.

Connect your mind to the line that runs throughout time.

Here’s a little theory of mine:

Let’s make a blood pact

With our passions intact,

We’ll all counteract:

The noo voodoo

This noo hoodoo

This is a noo ju-ju

A noo voodoo

A new voodoo

This noo hoodoo

We do and you doo-doo

Can you feel it too?

Mongreloid

2009-11-25T13:33:00.001Z

Mongreloid

January 15, 2009

A funny thing happened on the way to…

…global tolerance and understanding between cultures

So I was walking a long the street when I bumped into an African queen, with Irish eyes that were smiling.

I said, what you so happy about?

She said she was off home to eat some Spag bol and smoke some Moroccan, maybe sup on some Canadian Club and wait for her latin lover to drop by.

I said, what’s he like?

She said he wears Italian suits – he’s got a Mini Cooper like in the Italian Job, but he drives it like he’s in the French Connection.

“If I go for a drive with him, I need a shot of Polish vodka to gimme some Dutch courage,” she said.

That’s how you can drink and drive and get away with it, I said. We laughed.

By that time we’d walked along by the park where there’s a Jerry-built caff serving up German sausage in French bread, Cornish pasties, Devon cream teas – very cosmopolitan.

Woman running it’s a Russian Doll with an American Psycho for a husband, with their own version of the Cold War raging. Perfect working relationship? Scotch mist, more like.

Next door’s a newsagent. Y’know, Asian Babes on the top shelf, People’s Friend in the middle and the Daily Vitriol everywhere else.

I said to the geezer behind the counter: “Weather’s not great. I thought we were due for an Indian Summer?” He agreed.

Then we were onto politics and the new black. Barack, that is.

I’d previously thought the shopkeeper was a bit of a British Bulldog type, so he surprised me when he said:

“The leader of the free world’s a brown man; a mixed-race man for a mixed-up land.

“Ain’t it about time we realised that our cultures, genes and habits have been mixed up and interlinked from the very first time we bred like rabbits.”

I nodded as I took my change and felt somewhat relieved to find that hybrids are the best…if Darwin’s to be believed.

2009-11-25T13:25:00.000Z

Members of the Musicocracy

November 2008

My Lords, ladies and rock stars

All rise and be upstanding for our new royalty

(They’re only blue-blooded because of the amount of drugs they’ve taken,

but never mind, let’s be kind). Hello, Your Right Royal High-Ness

Welcome, Sir Bob and Baronet Bono,

Lord of the Amazon Jungle – Sting

Lord Puffy of Diddyland

Of course, Sir Macca and Your Bowieness

There’s Lady Madonna of course – with her Scottish castle and her lands,

Her own chef cooking her food-free, fad-rich, meals whilst she snaps grouse-necks with her bare hands.

Fatboy loved his three-storey terraced Brighton town house so much he bought…

the whole terrace.

Rod Stewart has his own jet – dyed peroxide blonde

Tom Jones has got a velvet-lined loo seat, of which he’s very fond

(rrrrrr-regal see)

They’ve all got their own charities and causes

Papped out riding their horses

Or snapped by there fleets of cars, lined up on their gravel drives

Glassy-eyed, royal wavers, living rarified, regal lives

Meanwhile, there’s a season to enjoy. Wellies and oversized shades have replaced crisp taffeta for the annual Mudsuckers’ Ball (that’s Glastonbury)

Like the ‘real’ aristocracy, there’s a few misfits and mentalists

– it’s the small gene pool, ain’t it.

Darling Georgie Michael. Caught in the toilets once again.

All boys’ school, was it?

Poor Marquis de Saddo – Michael ‘Bubbles’ Jackson. He’s shamed the bloodline y’know

Gary Glitter too. And we all thought he was the leader, the leader. But he stooped too low

Jordan gets snubbed at Polo, Kate Moss caught in mid-snort

Catching out the new lords and ladies is a hack’s daily sport

Kings and queens have come and gone, the present lot have lost their sheen,

But our culture’s crowned a new dynasty – big rock stars have usurped the Queen.

It’s a Royal Wedding when Posh’n’Becks got hitched, sat on his’n’her thrones. I bet Lizzie’s regal nose twitched as she surveyed the bones

Left over from a time when she and her forbears were revered

Leading by birth-right and majesty, which sounds a bit weird, these days.

And it’s not just the Windsors who’ve been upstaged.

Pop-star aristocracy is all the rage

Dukes and duchesses in Burke’s Peerage – that’s all gawn for a burton

Now its Heat and Closer magazines, the only thing that’s certain

Is our appetite for new, shiny, glossy, unpockmarked heads.

Replacing those that have rolled…who needs a Revolution?

Our old boys’ networks nearly all dead.

Don't Fuck the Police

2009-11-25T13:23:00.000Z

DON’T FUCK THE POLICE

November 2008

Fuck the police! Said NWA

But I rather liked Sergeant Kellaway

I used to have to ring the cops as part of the day job

Find out who’d been Twocking, or going out on the rob

So me and Sarj would have our daily giggle

As I noted down the names and numbers, details, titbits for the Daily Tittle-Tattle

We’d compare nutters, raise our eyebrows (coo!) at the general public.

I’d generally publicise what crime news he wanted to share

- which was the nice bit about papers, we’d often declare.

But at night, I listened to Snoop Doggy Dogg.

I put on Cop Killer.

I joined in the whoop, whoops on the Sound of the Police

I sang it loud: Whoop, whoop, the Sound of the Beast!

“Officer, officer, officer, overseer” – sneered KRS1

It takes a nation of millions to hold us back, went Public Enemy’s Number 1

Pigs, rozzers, Babylon

Don’t trust the Bizzies, the thick blue scum

All coppers are bastards, said the graffiti on the wall.

How’d a black man get those bruises? Was he pushed, or did he fall?

But Sergeant Kellaway wasn’t like that at all.

He wasn’t like the cops on the TV or in the mind of a hip hop MC.

The nearest he got to a soul brother was his Beautiful South CD

He was more like a social worker. A carer in the community.

Doing paper work, visiting schools, bringing in the drunk and disorderly.

An ABH here, a GBH there. His last murder was in 2003.

I wanted to be down with the kids. I wanted to Express Meself with a hard-nosed rhyme.

But I slowly realised that spreading bad words was itself a crime.

Undermining people you don’t even know, who do the job you couldn’t do

Making sweeping generalisations when you’re on the mic

Just to fill track 19 on CD Two

Speaking out is fine, but when it’s out your arse it ain’t

And all you sucker MCs better get dis! U gonna hear dis bitch complain.

Yeah, I’m down with Snoop Dogg, but I don’t live in Watts.

My homies all eat olives and live yoghurt biopots.

Meanwhile, petty thefts, lost dogs, a teenage runaway,

Drunken schoolkids, confused pensioners are filling the in-tray

They’re all the duties of another busy day

For the quiet-minded carer that is Sergeant Kellaway.

New poem - to be premiered this week

2009-11-18T15:19:00.000Z

Am shoring up my new status as a poet by...writing poetry!

I'll be hosting Forked at the B-bar this week, showcasing the best in new wordsmithery, and I don't like to be left out of the proceedings. I'll also be hosting Soundbites at The Ustinov at Bath Theatre Royal next week, with the likes of Polar Bear, Kate Tempest HKB FiNN and Simon Mole (thank-you for your support, Apples & Snakes).

Below is my latest piece.

Lady of the LED light

With laptop as loom, the cyber-spinner crafts a day’s work from binary code. Page loads.

Threads of media combine and she knits a career out of nought. List sort.

It’s alt-tab alchemy as a webpage begins to take shape.

First its header. Then a footer. Then its buttons go on.

She digs through her inbox to find her tools. She cuts. She pastes.

There’s little waste from this mac-neat operator.

She saves. Regularly. Stitching time online.

Worn carpet beneath her workstation.
Daylight-blocking curtains with daylight bulbs.
Screen wipes. Low hum.

Two phones: landline and mobile.
Ionising crystal and executive toy.
Pinboard.
All walls are white. Mac-white.

Her computer doubles as radiator, warming her bones and drying her membranes.
Prior cottage-industrialists suffered needle-pricked fingertips and eye-squint.
Screen-glare equals no blink so a Post-It note reminds her to
(when she can tear her eyes away to read it).

As a digital immigrant in the 90s, she landed with matching computer-cases, dewy-eyed at the big Apple, ready to make her mark in her American dream holiday.

This wasn’t work – this was lifestyle!

She learnt new languages and words. She early-adopted.
She upgraded. Regularly.

Her skills weren’t received from the generation previous. Rather, they sank in from the electric atmosphere exhaled from Silicon Valley.

She basked in the white heat of technology – but it burnt her too.

Partners who were locked out, logged out – stared out by the screen’s unblinking, possessive gaze.
Her pixel-lit pupils fixed on fonts, not faces.
Her fingers flicked over function keys. She Googled. Regularly.

Like wizened old women the world over, our Lady of the LED Lamp will succumb to the
ravages of the machine-age.
Her mouse grip will slacken as her blunted synapses slow up.
Her already shaking fingers will ossify. Petrify.
Her dry eyes will mist over, her ears no longer hearing email alerts.
Her laptop hunch will be permanent.
System shutdown.

Pensionable age has been put back to 85, so press on she must.
With no sons or daughters to support her she continues to log on and do the screen time.
The only umbilical cord she experienced linked her to the wall-socket.
Her ovaries atrophied over long days and nights at the screen.
Her children-window closed quietly as she played digital midwife. Witnessing others’ business baby-steps, holding only clients’ hands, soothing scuffed code, smoothing away fears.

So she sits once again on her ergonomic office commode, carefully connects her RSS feed-tube and tries not to remember the sun on her straighter back and the sweet air in her nose.
Or the time when she’d forego time at the keys for a walk in the park with a non-virtual friend. She’d even turn off her phone. Sometimes.

She deleted those memories. Regularly.

Day Tripper - creative journeys via London underground into consciousness

2009-10-25T17:12:00.001Z

I'm back from performing at Shunt - this amazing underground artspace in London Bridge underground station. I was there performing poetry "when no-one listens", which is a bit like writing a blog where nobody visits.

However, this week I've been told I have at least 2 followers - one of them certainly through a new bit of jiggery-webbery known as NetworkedBlogs, which links your Facebook account with your blog. Check out my Facebook fan, over there on the right. Find 'em on Facebook right here.

Which made me think I'd better pull up my digital armchair and commit to turning on Tokus TV a bit more often - giving you recommendations, experiences, ideas and directions from the 3rd Eye of Da Tokus (actually, I've got four, dontcha know?).

So here goes. Whilst in London I visited the Frieze Art Fair, where members of the arts fraternity hang out and look louche, whilst cutting multi-nought deals for inpenetrable contemporary art. Luckily, the shuttle-bus arrived outside in time to whisk me away to the Museum of Everything, an exhibition of outsider art. Go see.

I also enjoyed another Frieze 'fringe' show which involved Wolfe von Lenkiewicz, scion of Plymouth-based painter Robert. The show was called Age of the Marvellous and its ideas, Victoriana, taxidermy and atmosphere fed my hungry mind. See more Wolfe-man pictures here.

I knew I was in the Age of the Marvellous when me and a mate watched a lecture by consciousness-miner Roy Ascott, (pictured right) at Plymouth University. He reckons artists are the ones equipped with enough imagination to explore the boundaries of physics and consciousness. Well it ain't the accountants of the earth, now is it? Have a taster of Roy's ideas here, courtesy of Google books

Finally, finished the week at the Plymouth Respect Festival, where I enjoyed the work of Baluji Shrivastav in bringing alive Hindu epic poem the Bhagavad Gita in a new work called Song Celestial with his sitar, and his band's poetry, harmonies and beauty. Baluji's also been cutting in in the pop world, performing at the BBC's Electric Proms with The Doves.

Next week, New Orleans on a fact-finding mission. I'm blessed.

PS: Am still getting feedback about Mama Tokus at Tuk Tuk Cabaret.

Mama Tokus gets Shunted

2009-10-14T10:25:00.001+01:00

I feel like a real writer now. Mama Tokus is in a Travelodge garret, paid for by Apples & Snakes and I’m slaving over a hot laptop on a wifi connection.

I've been sent up to London to take part in a performance poetry experiment, where we take poems to the clubbers. Let's hope we don't get glassed.

Read all about the antics happening in London's labyrinthine Shunt club at this dedicated website

Face of Plymouth 2009

2009-07-21T21:37:00.003+01:00

This is what happened when I helped to host the Face of Plymouth 09 awards, in Plymouth Pavilions. Just like on real telly!

You like my style? I've got reasonable rates...

Raspberry Ballet...or Bit Tart....or Juicy in the Sky with Cream on...

2009-07-15T18:19:00.010+01:00

Have just spent about 18 hours as a piece of soft fruit.

I can recommend it. You'll meet new girls who want to cuddle you, blokes who like girls with 20 tits and people who think you're a strawberry.

Quite an agreeable cross-section of the UK public, actually.

Consume through me

2009-06-25T20:51:00.004+01:00

Even though I'm a wannabe disciple of Reverend Billy I'm still keen on getting you to shop - but in a caring manner.

That's why I've set up my own shop right here, one for the B-bar, one for the Barbican International Jazz and Blues Festival and one for the Plymouth Respect Festival

If you want to buy CDs and MP3s, let me direct you to the right choices, if I may.

The First Post

2009-06-07T08:39:00.005+01:00

Welcome to my brand new, pepped-up site.

It's had a makeover and is ready to go. Bit like meself really.

Bear with me while I tinker with the undercarriage for a little while longer.

Soon this site'll be purring like a kitty drowning in Whiskas...

About Me

2009-06-07T08:27:00.005+01:00

I'm a portfolio worker alright.

That means that I don't have just one job, but a mixture of career choices.

At the moment I'm a promoter, festival director, broadcaster, compere and musician.

I can help you with:
- writing, press and PR
- video-making
- hosting your event
- writing and performance music
- helping to organise events

If you like, you can download my CV right here

See the Contact page if you'd like to get in touch

Press

2009-06-07T08:26:00.071+01:00

My debut album On The Ragtime is available and you can read all about it by downloading the PDF press release by clicking here.

You can download a general press release about Mama Tokus by clicking here.

And you can download high-resolution pictures of Mama right here. Just click on the picture, then right-click and Save Image As.., then sit back and poor yourself a stiff one...

Mama Tokus (low-resolution 57k)

Mama Tokus (high-resolution 7mb)

Mama Tokus Joker (low-resolution 61k)

Mama Tokus Joker (high-resolution 538k)

Or read testimonials below:

Music, hosting and poetry

2009-06-07T08:26:00.035+01:00

Mama Tokus is:

entertaining, edifying funky and funny, writing/playing original tunes and sly interpretations
a nu-music-hall performer
a poetess - hosting the regular Apples & Snakes performance poetry night Forked
a hostess and MC

Mama Tokus writes and sings nu soul, blues and R&B tunes (old, proper Ray Charles-style R&B, that is), nu-music-hall ditties and humorous (but always groovy) tunes – memorable originals and interpretations.

She hails from that wellspring of blues and UK R&B, the Thames Delta (think Ian Dury, Dr Feelgood and Zoot Money).

She is influenced by:

Dinah Washington (pictured); Sarah Vaughan; Tina Turner; Barrelhouse Annie; Burt Bacharach; Earl Okin; Cole Porter; Noel Coward; the Rolling Stones; WAR; Georgie Fame; James Booker; Sister Rosetta Tharpe; The Meters…and many more groovy people.

Mama Tokus can perform at your theatre / venue / cabaret show / jazz or blues gig / party / festival / arts centre / gay night / conference / supper club / performance poetry session in the following ways:

Solo, to backing tracks
Duo, with keyboard player
Trio with keyboard player and sax/harmonica
6-piece, with keyboards and singers
8-piece Mama Tokus Soul Revue, with keyboards, bass, drums, singers and soloists
Solo as a performance poet
Solo as an MC

What the people say:

“Like Dr John in a three-way with Shirley Bassey and Eartha Kitt” – The People’s Republic of South Devon culture news website

“Had a journey through the magical musical religion of Mama Tokus last night and it was out of this world! Brilliant evening” – a happy punter after a Mama Tokus show

“Mama Tokus: who has to be seen to be believed! Unique, original, authentic, funny and well...different!” - Don Eales, London media activist

“The glorious, garrulous queen of the (South West) swamp delta blues, Mama Tokus” – Apples & Snakes performance poetry organisation

Music is an integral part of my working and playing life. I'm a singer, songwriter and cabaret artiste, plus I also find time to be the promoter at the B-bar and a Festival Director of the Barbican International Jazz & Blues Festival

*****

As well as performing with my super-funky outfit The Sons of Bitches, Mama hosts the regular performance poetry session Forked! at the B-bar, as well as Tuk-Tuk Cabaret in the same venue.

*****

Earlier this century, I co-wrote and recorded a disco/house/groove tune called Say U Wannit.

It went out on vinyl and is available for purchase in iTunes here - readallabout it on this site right here

or you can buy it as an MP3 download online here - make sure you get the Original Mix.

It also went on a cool'n'groovy compilation by Dimitri from Paris, available from Amazon like this:

See Me

2009-06-07T08:24:00.007+01:00

See pictures of Mama here:

Mama as a hostess/poetess at regular performance poetry session Forked here:

On the Cabaret Stage at the Burning Man Festival, Nevada, USA, here:

Book me

2009-06-07T08:21:00.012+01:00

You want Mama Tokus for your show?

Contact me here:
mama@mamatokus.com

Or use the Facebook/Twitter buttons on the right

Tag Nuts

2008-10-24T01:08:00.007+01:00

2008-02-13T19:57:00.002Z

Mama Tokus returns to the stage at the B-Bar after a long absence:

Bestival antics and the soothing power of the ocean...

2007-09-14T11:06:00.001+01:00

A wave of nausea flows over me when I see that my big mate has made it into the Guardian ahead of me, on account of his maritime Bestival fancy dress.

Why? The original little beggar conceived and executed the finest costume there at this wicked festy on my old manor the Isle of Wight.

He chose to make and wear a full 'wave' costume (we pair struggled down from Plymouth with it taking up two train seats).

Now the Guardian's Arts Blog has referenced his smiling azure face.

Meanwhile, my face is just green. I'm just a washed up old hackette, obviously...

2007-09-01T15:53:00.001+01:00

The Holy Mole has lent us his blessing...

He's pointed out the Way, the Truth and the Light: www.Singsnap.com

Cue hours of fun with a webcam and a mic, singing your karaoke guts out to no-one but your fellow cyber-saddos.

Here's Mixy's rendition of a blues classic - with added Top of the Pops vid-effect too!

The long silence breaks

2007-08-09T11:30:00.000+01:00

Hurrah! My creative block is lifting.

I've just delved into The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron and already it's changing my creative life.

To update you: I've been carping on for years about not being a singer. Consequence? I ain't a singer. However, I've decided that 2007 is the year of the show and therefore my new band can be revealed, alongside the singer inside.

The outfit contains actor/dancer/singer/sculptor/woodsman Andy Blackwell, plus that Karaoke Terrorist Ian Gilson - who is also a karaoke world-record-holder, as can be seen in video right here.

Together we make up Mama Tokus and the Sons of Bitches.

We're tackling lady-issues, men-issues, black-issues, brown-issues and jazz issues. We've all got issues, y'see?

So watch this space for something musical, new and fresh to happen real soon. The singer inside me is screaming to be let out...

Listen Again to Mixymisstokus rattling on

2006-05-18T10:47:00.000+01:00

It's official: Mixymisstokus has gone global...

Thanks to Aunty Beeb, your favourite geeky gobsh*te is being exposed to a worldwide audience, thanks to the Intryweb.

The weekly show The Review - the new arts and culture show for BBC Radio Devon - is now available online, for you punters to listen at leisure.

You'll hear me and the terrifically-toned Jo Loosemore opine about the county's happenings, all at a time to suit you.

Visit www.bbc.co.uk/devon, find the Listen Again button, click that and select The Review show.

You'll need Real Player to hear the gubbins. See diagram for instructions if you're digi-thick.

Bunny's Droppin' - Mixymisstokus's first proper podcast

2006-05-11T01:36:00.000+01:00

Watch out Whispering Bob Harris - Mixymisstokus has ventured into broadcasting.

She's set sail on pirate waters, with a new internet radio show called Bunny's Droppin'.

On the inaugural show she met Mike 'Really Good' Offen and Matt 'Not Bad' Taylor, who shared the fruits of their crate-diggin' with her.

Expect freakbeat, psychedelia, pastoral rock and wigged-out warpings - even some raucous garage bands, in the first ever Bunny's Droppin' podcast, available to download here

Of course, there's the weekly BBC Radio Devon show known as The Review going out every Thursday night at 6pm on 95.7FM and 103.4FM...but you know all of that already.

Mixy makes it to the BBC

2006-04-19T19:10:00.000+01:00

Here is the news: MixyMissTokus makes it to the mainstream. Will she sink or swim?
We'll let the listeners decide...

MixyMissTokus will be co-presenting a new arts and culture show on BBC Radio Devon from 6.05pm every Thursday, beginning in May.

Each show - working title The Review - will run for just under an hour and will include features, music, cinema and visual arts news from right across Devon.

There will be a special section in each show for Devon Demos - new music from the county's own musicians and bands.

The first show goes out on May 4 and will be weekly from then on.

New records out

2006-02-22T23:21:00.001Z

So now you can buy MixyMissTokus music in the shops, all proper like.

Simultaneously, you can buy vinyl and CD - thanks to a new single release on Spanish label Bubble Soul and a new CD compilation called In This House of Love mixed by Dimitri from Paris, out on Defected Records.

Say U Wannit, from The J&K Project is the fruit of the musical loins of MixyMissTokus and Joe Biddle, with production/remix work by the Stereo Mutants.

The tune sounds like music to swing vanity cases to, as you walk to your flight to Rio De Janeiro sucking on some Airwave chewing gum.

Say U Wannit's original mix sits alongside Incognito, Gato Barbieri, Grace Jones, Bob Sinclar, Sylvester, Black Box and many others on the triple CD (but be beware: the track doesn't appear on the vinyl release)

Here's some reviews of the single and CD:
"Set to take the scene by storm. Awesome stuff indeed."

"Bubble Soul's next journey takes us to the handy touch of Stereo Mutants. Over an original idea by Joe Biddle and the sweet vocal offered by Katie Tokus in the Original "Jazzy" mix, the mutants transmit it to the dancefloor through their two mixes: Floating Dub & Island Mix. No description better than the sound. Enjoy!"

"Strong Soulful latin house"

"What a fantastic compilation...2 discs mixed with god damn funky disco feel grooves....each track just flows and maintains a vibe!"

Buy the vinyl online from:
Juno Records

Buy the Dimitri From Paris triple-CD from:

Plymouth Hub gig goes off

2006-02-22T23:12:00.000Z

Phew! What a debut!

We scored a busy hit at The Hub with our debut gig on January 28, 2006.

Lots of our friends were there to see us perform together for the first time, which was lovely.

The gig went well, and Nemo broke off from the set to get the crowd singing along, karaoke-style.

Look out for news of Nemo Jones gigs to come - you can keep up with his news at his Myspace bit.

Plymouth gig for Yours Truly

2006-01-17T12:31:00.000Z

The time has come to reveal the musicality within MixyMissTokus to her home crowd.

She is backing singer in Nemo Jones' band which will be performing about 9pm on:

Saturday January 28 at the Plymouth Hub in Bath Street, Plymouth.

See a map here.

And tell all your mates, and their mates to turn up (not forgetting to say who they've come for on the door). That way we'll all be millionaires...

Rock star proof and Happy New Motivation!

2006-01-05T11:39:00.000Z

I'm back for 2006 - and I'm ready to rock'n'roll. In fact I've already tasted a little limelight pre-Christmas. Check out the tiny gig I did with Nemo Jones (right) at The Bedford boozer in Balham, London.

He was co-headlining at the One Taste Christmas session: a mixture of performance poetry, beautiful song, chocolate fountains and even some gospel carols at the end. See the pix here.

Meanwhile, I've been working on web publishing and podcasting my friend Peter Gunn - a DJ, actor and former radio broadcaster who's embracing the power of the internet as opposed to the airwaves.
He plays rock'n'roll and jump-jive and has recorded four shows for me to help him podcast.
He's got streaming MP3s of his shows online here and I'll be getting into podcasting his shows from his blog here

MixyMissTokus music on the blog

2005-11-13T18:03:00.000Z

Listen to past and nearly present MixyMissTokus tunes on this blog.
There's a lovely little Flash-y MP3 player for you to enjoy. Just choose the music section down the left.
Listen out for Sha-Gov tunes, Statik Sound System trip hop and some original MixyMissTokus gubbins too.

MixyMissTokus makes her piano debut...and goes straight to video

2005-11-13T11:20:00.000Z

Get ready for the year's most remarkable musical performance.
MixyMissTokus has made her piano performing debut - and the event was filmed for posterity, by her arty mate Ms. Maxine McCarthy.

The happening was a concert for the students of Ruth Mason and took place at the Saltash Wesley Church hall on November 10, in front of an assemblage of proud parents, and mickey-taking mates.
See down the side for the video of the occasion.
And if any agents want to sign up the next Jamie Cullum, email me below. I won't be holding my breath.

More movies and music

2005-10-30T09:45:00.000Z

MixyMissTokus has been busy.

As well as trying to populate Tokus TV, I've been working on the press and media for the Respect Festival, as well as the day job at Motiongrafik.

Haven't made music lately, but have uploaded some past pieces to this blog. Look out for a forthcoming collaboration with Plymouth's 14th best DJ, who's launched a new label called Ride Records

There's Last Friday too, a monthly knees-up for the city's creatives. And stalkers. This month installation artist Bill Wroath launched his website there.

Plus I'm beginning work on the Ploddcast. It's Plymouth, it's odd and it's a podcast. Geddit?

Tokus TV goes Live

2005-10-21T13:05:00.000+01:00

OK, so there's not much to see and nothing to hear, but the first steps towards media-mogulettehood have been taken.

Tokus TV will become the base for my creative work outside (and alongside and inside) Motiongrafik, showcasing videos, music and writings from the mind and body of MixyMissTokus
Keep 'em peeled.